HOLLYWOOD CHAMELEON: The Many Faces Of Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp has a rare combination of skills for an American actor — he's both a bankable leading man and a constant Oscar threat.

Part of this — maybe all of it — has to do with his ability to inhabit and reinvigorate different characters. Depp's the opposite of George Clooney, in that he never plays Johnny Depp.

He's always creating new personas on film, for better or for worse. (We're looking at you, Willie Wonka.)

And with "The Rum Diary" opening a week from tomorrow, and the recent announcement that Depp will be playing Tonto to Armie Hammer's Lone Ranger in Gore Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer's film adaptation of the famed TV show, it seems like a good time to look back at Depp's many faces -- and costumes.

In the 1993 movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," Depp took care of a mentally challenged Leonardo DiCaprio and continued to advance his serious-actor resume.

In Jim Jarmusch's indie-Western "Dead Man" (1995), Depp played an accountant named William Blake — like the poet — who is hunted down as a murderer.

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998) was Depp's first attempt to take on the work of the great Dr. Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson. The druggy film he, Benicio Del Toro and Terry Gilliam put together is in turns brilliant and unwatchable.

It wasn't until 2003 that Depp hit on his uber-role: Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean." Disney's license to print money has put Depp in the pirate's hat three times since, and he was nominated for an Oscar after the first film.

Depp went from the blockbuster "Pirates" to something entirely different — playing the "Peter Pan" author J.M. Barrie in "Finding Neverland" (2004), which also earned him an Academy Award nomination.

Attempting to top Gene Wilder's timeless Willie Wonka was a fool's errand, and Tim Burton and Depp certainly looked a little foolish after the kaleidoscopic mess that was "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005).

His third, most recent and still unsuccessful bid for Oscar gold came in another Burton collab, 2007's "Sweeney Todd," which also saw Depp flex his vocal pipes.

"Public Enemies" in 2009 had Depp in the role of folk hero John Dillinger. He excelled at the roguish charm necessary to carry a Robin Hood-type character.

"The Rum Diary" will be Depp's second time as a Hunter Thompson doppelganger, and the film promises to be sexy, if nothing else, what with Amber Heard and Aaron Eckhart filling out the cast.